February 9, 2012

Wedding wows

South Indian (rather Tam Bram) weddings are mostly quite boring...the actual wedding ceremonies, anyway. The rest of it - the guests, the food, the outfits and jewelry, the gifts and the drama make up for the boredom in many ways.

Guests

Most often, the guest list i filled with people that the bride and groom don't know. So introductions during the ceremony are mandatory. What makes this horribly painful is that the couple is presented with boring facts about how the guest is known to whichever family member invited them. And to top it off, it usually ends with the guest telling either the bride or groom "I saw you when you were x years old...do you remember me?" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Food

This is the most interesting part of the wedding, especially for people like me who really don't care about all the dressing up and the socializing. Yelai saapadu filled with items including vadai, payasam, a host of other sweets and savouries make any wedding bearable. What is very interesting is that close family and friends, who are fortunate enough to get a personal face-to-face invitation routinely ask who the cook for the wedding is! Like it matters really! I mean, if it's someone who isn't that great, will they not attend the wedding? Seriously! And it's a given that people will ask...so better be ready with a good enough answer in case you're not the kind to want to disclose such information.

Outfits and Jewelry

The majority of people who attend weddings like this part the best! It's a great time to show off all the finery that they possess. What's funny is that some people end up looking grander than the bride herself! Talk about stealing someone's thunder! What I love the most is the after wedding conversation between friends/family. "Did you see what she was wearing? It must have cost a bomb!" or "How could she have worn that choker? It didn't go with the sari at all!" I have an answer for such types of questions..."I didn't notice at all"! :)

Gifts

One wouldn't think that something as nice as gifts could be a talked-about topic...but it is! Mostly because other than the cash and gift vouchers that the couple get, the rest of the stuff is rubbish! Clocks - 10, Flasks - 7, Wall hangings (not coordinated) - 4, Paintings - 20. Gift registries are the need of the hour...much more than cricket wins in test matches!

Drama

It's hard to classify what actually goes into this category. It's like a pot-pourri of things...or events...that lead up to the wedding, or happen at the wedding, or even just after. There's the usual family squabbles about absolutely unimportant stuff, out-of-town relatives reaching the wedding hall even before the bride and groom have entered, the groom forgetting his belt and realizing just before the reception, kids feeling sleepy at inopportune moments, the kitchen running out of sambar...the list is endless.

On reading all this, it seems like weddings aren't so bad after all...even Tam Bram ones...right?